Lioness (ancestral healing)

My paternal grandmother’s maiden name was Leone (lion in italiano). That name was passed to her, in true patriarchal tradition, by her father.

My grandmother’s given name was Annunciata (a coded holy name of the goddess, in true Calabrian tradition masking veneration with Catholicism). She went by Nuncy until at the age of six, her school teacher, who felt the name “too ethnic” changed it to Lucy. (Ironically this teacher was a Catholic nun.)

My grandmother gave away her name of lion to her first husband (I don’t know what her first married name was). She gave away her given name at the age of six, legally changing her name to Lucille at some point in early adulthood.

She rejected her lion. She rejected her holiness. Because she had to survive.  Patriarchy and white supremacy seek to wipe away our holy and ancestral selves,